Non-Split Jerk Techniques

Olympic weightlifting is a relatively conservative sport in terms of its techniques. The clean and jerk lifts are dominated by the split style used by the vast majority of athletes of today and in the past decades. The classic split jerk is mostly chosen due to the distinct opportunity to lower the body in the jerk phase to a decent level with the greater stability.

However, there were other alternatives to the split style jerking offered by various athletes throughout the decades of the development of the sports. This section of the Lift Up showcases a demos of the main non-split styles of jerk.

Power Jerk

In the 1950s, power jerk was utilized by legendary Paul Anderson (USA) who was famous rather for his raw strength than for elaborate lifting techniques. Arpad Nemessanyi (Hungary) practiced power jerk in the 1960s.

In the early 1980s, Victor Sots (USSR) dominated the 100KG weightclass with a very effective usage of this style. He managed to set six clean and jerk world records including his last record power jerk of 237.5KG in 1982. Even outstanding split jerker Yury Zakharevich was giving preferences to the power jerk style at some point in his career.

In the 1990s, both Pyrros Dimas and Kakhi Kakhiashvilis effectively used power jerk to win gold medals at three Olympics in 1992, 1996 and 2000. In this demo, you can view power jerk performed by Nemessanyi, Sots, Dimas and Kakhiashvilis.

Full-Squat Jerk

The squat style jerk is the latest phenomenon in lifting. For the first time on the elite international level it was used by Yingquiang He (China) at the 1986 World Championship. At the same time, development of this new style non-split jerk was pioneered by an accomplished athlete and coach Movladi Abdoulaev and his students in the Soviet Union.

In the following years, it was used by several Chinese and some other nations athletes at the top international tournaments.

In order to view the clips, please select the athlete's name in the drop-down menu and then click the "View" button to proceed. You may consider using the control buttons below the clips to enhance the experience of watching these almost forgotten today lifts by the classics of Olympic weightlifting.

NON-SPLIT JERK TECHNIQUES: Grab-the-Code Intsructions

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